LD 4622 
1878 
Copy 1 



THE PROPRIETY 



Acknowledging the. Lord 

IN ALL OUR WAYS. 



PREACHED BEFORE 

THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY,, 
June i6th, 1878. _ 



BY 
JAMES McGOSH, D.D., LL.D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE. 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS. 

- PRINCETON: McGINNESS & RUNYON. 
1878, 



THE PROPRIETY 



OF 



Acknowledging the Lord 

IN ALL OUR WAYS. 

PREACHED BEFORE 

THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, 
June i6th, 1878. 



BY 
JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE. 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS. 

1878, 



'-^i:'' 



^ 



W EXCHANGE 

JAN Z\ I92t 



Edward O. Jenkins' Print, 20 N. William St. 



THE PROPRIETY 



Acknowledging the Lord 

IN ALL OUR WAYS. 



'' In all thy ways acknowledge Hijn and He shall direct thy Path.''''— Vxo\. iii. 
16. " A man^s heart deviseth his way^ but the Lord divecteth his steps.'''' — 
Prov, xvi. 9. '' There are many devices in a man's heart : nevertheless the coun- 
sel of the Lord^ that shall stand.''''— Vxow. xix. 21. 



IT is very interesting to look on a company of 
young people, such as I now see before me. We 
shall find that the wise man has some lessons to 
them. 

I. 

Let us look at the many ways before the 
YOUNG. As the sky bends all around him, the boy 
regards his father's house as the center of the world, 
and in a sense it is so to him as is every other spot 
in which he may be. In a like way every man's 
present position, rather than the past or the future, 
is the center of his world — his sky bends all around it. 
The whole of his past has come down to it ; his future 
starts from it. All the roads lead to it ; all the roads 
go out from it. In the metropolis of this country 
the streets go out toward the various States. From 



4 THE PROPRIETY OF ACKNO WL EDGING 

the point they have reached, the young men may 
look out on the ways spread before them. 

There are the professioual walks anxiously regard- 
ed by thoughtful youths : the learned professions, 
business, farming, travel, literature, science, the pas- 
toral, the missionary office. There are the various 
motives and ends seen at a distance, which would lead 
you to enter these walks, such as wealth, fame, fash- 
ion, usefulness in the church or world. Some set one 
of these aims before them and pursue it eagerly. Most 
mingle more or fewer of these ends in all kinds of 
ill-assorted and undefined proportions, leading to very 
incongruous lives. 

There are ways before you which lead through 
time into eternity, and through eternity itself. There 
is the wide gate, and many going in thereat, with a 
number of paths going out from it : the path of pleas- 
ure with flowers on either side ; and the path of am- 
bition with promised crowns apparently ready to be 
placed on your brow ; but v;ith the issues carefully 
concealed, the dismal swamps, the deseits strewn 
with the carcasses of slain reputations, and the end 
of the whole everlasting darkness. There is the 
strait gate where you have to leave your sins be- 
hind you, that you may go unburdened with a pros- 
pect ever becoming more pleasant under a shaded 
avenue, and ever and anon opening to you glimpses of 
the city which hath foundations. These two gates are 
before you ; you must enter one or the other. Choose 
ye this day which ye will take. 

A curious sight would be disclosed to us, if we 



THE LORD IN ALL OUR WA YS, 5 

could have a horoscope to reveal to us the coming 
destiny of those now before me. Suppose the class- 
roll were called at a certain time in the future, say 
ten or twenty years hence, and as the name came up, a 
note taken as to the position of each one. How divers 
the marks we would have to take down. The ma- 
jority we might still find toiling in one or other of 
the dusty walks of life, not having yet reached their 
end, but still laboring in hope. Some are prosper- 
ing ; others have met with one disappointment after 
another. Some are already wealthy ; more, perhaps, 
have still to struggle for the bare means of subsist- 
ence. A few have reached an eminence more or less 
lofty ; most are still climbing the hill. Some we may 
fear are living for self and for this world ; others, we 
trust, are living for God and to do good. Many, we 
hope, are sustaining a high character ; one or more 
have fallen through pride and lust, and are living with 
a blackened character. It is certain that for a num- 
ber, less or more, others have to answer ; for they 
have been called away to the other world, where their 
destiny is fixed forever : their friends believing that 
they are in the land of light and love; but some, 
alas ! — the experience of the world leads us to make 
the supposition — leaving behind them a name, which 
their friends seldom mention, because it is as offen- 
sive as the odors which issue from an open grave. 

But from our present point, we can not thus look into 
the future, and ascertain what is to be the particular 
lot of any one. God has in wisdom and in kindness 
drawn an impenetrable veil over the details of the 



6 THE PROPRIETY OF ACKNOWLEDGING 

future, and all that we may attend to the duties of the 
present. We can, indeed, see in a general way, that 
those who pursue an evil course will, sooner or later, 
be visited with God's righteous judgment ; and that 
those who walk in the right way will be encouraged 
and strengthened, and reach a blessed termination in 
this world or the next. Beyond this no one has 
any vision of what is to come ; and it is well that 
it is so, as premature disclosures, if gloomy, might 
unfit us for exertion, and, if bright, might slacken our 
energy. So, from our present position, our duty is to 
choose the proper path and walk steadily in it. 

II. 

Let us consider the heart as devising its 
WAY. The heart, as the word is now used, stands 
for the feelings. But it should be observed that the 
word ** feelings " is not used in Scripture, and the word 
** feeling'' occurs only twice, and in neither case in 
our sense of the phrase. Some are spoken of in Eph. 
iv. 19, as being ^^ past feeling," aatXyua^ past modesty ; 
and in Heb. iv. 15, Jesus is said to be ** touched with 
a feeling of our infirmities,'' Gviinadrjroi:, with a sym- 
pathy. Nor is there in the Greek or Roman languages 
a word of exactly the same meaning as our '' feelings." 
The phrase used in Scripture is a more comprehensive 
and expressive one, *^ heart," denoting something 
deeper than mere floating or fleeting emotions. We 
read in Scripture again and again of the '^ imagina- 
tions," the 'devices," the ^Vthoughts," the ''pur- 
poses " of the heart. 



THE LORD IN ALL OUR WA YS, 7 

In the Word of God the phrase *' heart '' denotes 
what we now call the ^' Motive " part of man*s nature 
(the Orecl iv^e of Aristotle), that which raises up de- 
sire and leads to action. It embraces the springs of 
action, the *^ heart, out of which are the issues of life.'* 
It denotes not so much the streams as the fountain out 
of which they flow. It is the choosing, the moving 
power, out of which come our projects, purposes, 
devices, plans, in thought and imagination, as well as 
our affections and feelings. Hence we read, Prov. 
xvi. I, of '^ the disposings of the heart.*' Had this 
meaning of the word been kept in view, we should 
have been saved an immense amount of confused and 
confusing controversy as to whether faith, whether 
religion, is an affair of the feelings or the understand- 
ing. Faith is an operation of the heart — " with the 
heart man believeth" — but of the heart in the enlarged 
sense of Scripture, embracing will and motive and 
purpose, being specially ^^ trust," the word used in 
the Old Testament. We see how wide and compre- 
hensive the command, *' Keep thy heart with all dili- 
gence, for out of it are the issues of life." It directs 
that the fountain be made pure, that the streams 
may be pure. 

The work of Christ, when He enters the heart, must 
be of the same kind as that of the good King Heze- 
kiah, when he entered the Temple which had been 
so polluted during the reign of his predecessors. On 
approaching it, he sees the porch shut up; on en- 
tering it by force, he finds the golden candlestick, 
which, for ages, had burned with light from heaven. 



8 THE PROPRIETY OF ACKNO WLEDGING 

extinguished in darkness. When a Hght is brought 
what a scene is disclosed ; the vessels of the house of 
the Lord cut in pieces, and the house of the Lord 
filled with all uncleanness. The altar was still there, 
but no holy incense had for years risen from it. And 
what was the first work of Hezekiah in these circum- 
stances? It was a work of overthrow and purifica- 
tion, and for long successive days were the Levites 
employed in bringing out these abominations from 
the Temple, and casting them into the brook Ke- 
dron. Now, there is such a scene disclosed to our 
view when God opens the heart which should have 
been His temple, and there must, in the first instance, 
be a similar work of overthrow. Or, rather, the work 
more nearly resembles that in which Hezekiah's son, 
the ungodly son of a pious parent, engaged in his 
declining life when he was brought to know that 
^^ the Lord he is God." That poor man had made his 
children pass through the fire to Moloch, and reared 
up altars to Balaam, and altars to all the host of 
heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord, 
and set a carved image, the idol which he had 
made, in the. house of the Lord. But, on being 
brought to repentance, he has to enter the Temple, 
and undo all his work. ^^And he took away the 
strange gods and the idol out of the house of the 
Lord, and the altars which he had made in the mount 
of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and cast 
them out of the city." Now, the Vv^ork in which the 
sinner, brought to see his sin, has to engage, more 
nearly resembles the work of Manasseh than the 



THE LORD IN ALL OUR IV A YS. g 

work of Hezekiah ; for the deeds which he has to 
undo are his own deeds, the altars and idols which 
he has to cast down are the altars and idols which 
he had raised. And what a scene is beheld by him, 
and beheld by him with dismay, and with all the 
greater dismay, because he used to survey it with 
pleasure and complacency ! Here is pride blocking 
up the very entrance ; here is covetousness, which is 
idolatry ; here is vanity, a carved image, and lust and 
passion, with their abominations nestling in this spot 
and in that spot, in the very temple of God. There 
is need of a work of preparation. There must be a 
way prepared by and for the Lord. 

In order that the heart may be pure, it must first 
be purified, and to have it purified is our first duty. 
Our first duty is not to do certain works : to give alms, 
to keep the Sabbath and give up particular sins ; all 
these are duties and important duties, but they are 
not the first, though they should immediately follow, 
or rather go along with, the first. When a man's body 
is diseased, his first duty is to be rid of the malady. 
When a man's house is on fire, his first business is 
not to furnish or adorn it, but to extinguish the 
flames. So the first work of a sinner, under sin and 
condemnation, is to be delivered from the fatal mal- 
ady, from the consuming fire. The first care of the 
burdened pilgrim is to be rid of his load, that he may 
pursue his journey. This is the decisive step in the 
Christian's life ; it is, in fact, the crisis of his being. 
It is called the '' new birth," '* conversion," '' regener- 
ation ;" it is the step by which we are born into the 



I o THE PROPRIE TV OF A CKNO WLEDGING 

kingdom of heaven, as by our natural birth we were 
born into the world. Till this change is wrought in 
him, the devices of the man's heart are sure to be 
worldly, sinister, perverted, crooked. Even when we 
would do good, evil is present with us. While alto- 
gether unaware of it, we may be swayed by selfish 
and ungodly motives, leading us into one sin after 
another. The diseased eye needs to be rectified be- 
fore it can see things in their proper form and color. 
But being so purified, we are now ready to discern 
our way. 

It is a man's duty to devise his way, to choose a 
way among those spread out before him. God has 
given him faculties for this purpose ; among others, 
powers of observation and of discernment. He can 
look back on his past experience and gather wisdom 
from it. He can take the advice of friends in whom 
he has confidence, that they know the world and 
mankind, and have a regard for him. He should 
calmly survey the position in which he is placed, and 
his prospects as to any given line of life that may be 
open to him. He may survey his bodily strength 
and determine whether his health is likely to stand 
the labor which he has to undertake. He is called 
specially to estimate his talents, and to find what 
they are adapted to. This is somewhat difficult and 
delicate work, as men are often very inadequate 
judges of their own capacities, frequently overrating 
them, and so trying tasks beyond their strength, but 
at times through a morbid modesty underrating 
them, and so declining work which they could ac- 



THE LORD IN ALL OUR WA YS, 1 1 

complish if only they had the courage to undertake 
it. Still, by means of trials of various kinds, success- 
ful and unsuccessful, the candid man will be able to 
ascertain what he is fit for. In a subordinate way 
the youth may consider not only his gifts, but his 
very tastes : as special tastes often proceed from 
special talents ; and as he is most likely to succeed in 
a line of life for which he has an inclination. Look- 
ing thus to his position and his capacities he may 
discover a fitness which determines for him his choice 
and his path. He may then go forward, feeling as 
if he had been dravv^n in, or shut in by God, who has 
not indeed spoken to him by an audible voice, but 
has called him by His Providence. Having thus 
weighed everything, and devised his way, he should 
set out courageously and hopefully, and pursue his 
way steadfastly, hearing by faith a voice behind him 
saying: "" This is the way, walk ye in it." This faith 
will impart a hope and an energy to him in the path 
he takes. Nothing can be more despicable than the 
aimless, inconsistent life w^hich many lead. If you 
ask them for what purpose they are living, they can 
scarcely tell you, for in fact they have no end before 
them, except to eat and drink, and act as others do, 
and according to the whim of the moment, or their 
surroundings at the time. 

There are youths to whom God gives a special call 
to enter on the work of the minister or the mis- 
sionary. A father or mother dedicated him, as 
Hannah did Samuel, to the service of the Lord in 
His temple, which is His Church. Prayers have been 
offered for him continually all toward this end. 



1 2 THE PROPRIETY OF ACKNO WLEDGING 

There has been a constant reference to it in the 
training in the family, in the school, and in the col- 
lege. Or prompted from above, he purposed at the 
time when he entered the Church to consecrate his 
life to the proclamation of the Gospel at home or 
abroad. He sees that he would serve higher ends, 
and be more useful in this service than in any other 
work. When he looks to all this, he should feel that 
the call is of God, and immediately obey. As he 
does so, he is not to be frightened by difficulties, or 
refuse to go forward because they are in the way, or 
until they are removed. " He that observeth the 
word shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds 
shall not reap.'' But when we hear the command, 
" In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening 
withhold not thine hand,'' let us go forth and obey, 
and the winds will blow in our favor, and the clouds 
discharge gracious showers. There is a timidity and 
a fear on the part of many that is cowardly. When 
God is calling for soldiers let us hasten to be enrolled. 
When the order is given, "' Speak unto the people 
that they go forward," let us go forward, even though 
the sea be rolling at our feet, and we shall find that 
God will make a way even in the depths of the sea 
for His people to pass in, and the waters shall be a 
wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. 



HI. 

The Command is, Acknowledge the Lord in 
ALL THY WAYS. We should do so, if for no other 
reason, yet, for this, that while man may have many 



THE LORD IN ALL OUR WA YS, 



13 



devices, *^ the counsel of the Lord, it shall stand/' 
We should plan, but should all the time remember 
that there is One above us whose plans overrule ours, 
to thwart them or bring them to a successful issue. 
God often shows that He is above man, and that He 
is stronger than man. We are all made to feel how 
dependent we are on Him. A youth sets out on his 
professional career with bright prospects of success, 
but is prostrated by disease and loses the tide, and 
knows not that another will rise in his favor. More 
than one of the grand old Greek plays teach that the 
gods carried their purposes not only in spite of the 
opposition of men, but by means of the very opposi- 
tion. It having been foretold that a son is to kill his 
father, the son is banished, in consequence, to a dis- 
tant country, but it is so ordered by fate that the son 
falls in with the father and murders him, without 
knowing who he is. The truth thus brought out 
strongly, but rudely, by those old poetical moralists, 
is clearly and accurately declared and illustrated in 
the Old Testament by numerous incidents. Thus, 
Ahitophel, who had all his life been a man of deep 
policy, on his abandoning David at the time when 
Absalom rebelled, is detected and exposed in the 
view of the whole world, and lays violent hands on 
himself. Haman is suspended on the gallows which 
he had erected for the execution of a noble-minded 
Jew. *^ The wicked," says the Psalmist, "^ are caught 
in their own snare." 

We are to acknowledge the Lord in all our ways. 
We are to acknowledge Him at starting, that He may 



14 THE PROPRIETY OF ACKNO WLEDGING 

keep us from setting out on the wrong path. We are 
to acknowledge Him throughout, lest He abandon us 
at a critical time, the time of danger and temptation, 
and leave us to walk in our own way, which may be 
one of folly ending in misery. You remember how 
the children of Israel, without consulting God, en- 
tered into a treaty with the Gibeonites, who deceived 
them, and were allowed to dwell in the land where 
for ages they were as thorns in the sides of the chil- 
dren of Israel, and on one occasion came down upon 
them with nine hundred chariots of iron and oppress- 
ed them mightily. We are to acknowledge Him by 
constantly and habitually looking to His Word, es- 
pecially to His law in the Old Testament form, rigid 
and unbending, and the New Testament form, com- 
prised in the Sermon on the Mount, irradiated all 
over with the smiles of love beaming from the coun- 
tenance of Jesus. For this purpose we should read a 
portion of it daily, that its precepts may be kept be- 
fore us. Even when we are not thinking of a par- 
ticular passage, we will be walking in the light of 
God's law shed around us, as we walk in the light of the 
sun even when we are not looking directly at it. Walk- 
ing thus we will draw back from whatever is discoun- 
tenanced by that law ; and not act as Balaam did 
w^hen, lured by the wages of iniquity, he went on his 
way without leave from God, and did not take the 
warning of the angel with the drawn sword standing 
across his path, and in the end perished in his sin. 
In that light we shall see light, and see openings of 
usefulness on the right, hand and on the left. 



THE LORD IN ALL GUR WA YS, 



15 



We are to acknowledge Him by prayer offered 
daily, as the day opens and the day closes, and by 
ejaculatory petitions from time to time, rising calmly 
out of the midst of the bustle and temptations of 
life, reaching the ear of God and moving His arm for 
our protection and deliverance. There may be prayer 
where no words are uttered, as we read of Hannah's 
prayer being offered and heard by God when Eli 
standing by perceived nothing but her lips moving. 
Nay, the heart may be moved when the lips are not. 
We are commanded to *^ pray always," to " continue 
instant in prayer." Not that every instant we are 
using the language of prayer, not even that at all 
times our feelings may be strong and lively ; but we 
are to cherish a prayerful and devotional spirit of 
mind, which is to be very much like the sacred fire 
which the priests kept continually burning on the 
altar ; that fire was not always rising into a flame, 
but it was always there ready to rise into a flame, 
morning and evening, and on other occasions when 
the sacrifice was laid upon it. In like manner we 
must never allow the fire of devotion to be extin- 
guished in our hearts ; it must be always there, ready 
to break forth into fervent feeling, and utterances 
when circumstances admit and require it. It has to 
be added that, while we can pray without words, we 
will find it useful generally to pray in the use of 
words, either breathed by the lips or breathed in the 
heart. When we would pray without any verbal 
expression, the thoughts are apt to wander, and be- 
come scattered and distracted hither and thither upon 



1 6 THE PROPRIE TV OF A CKNO WLEDGING 

the mountains of vanity; or should we succeed in 
preventing this, the mind apprehends everything 
dimly, and may sink into a state of painful vacancy. 
Even in secret we may find it expedient to employ 
fit words to restrain the imagination and to call forth 
and guide the feelings. Words may not, in them- 
selves, be of much value, but they are a channel in 
which the waters of the affections flow. They are, as 
it were, the vessel which contains the incense pre- 
sented before the Lord ; they are the cords which 
bind the sacrifice to the altar, that our prayers '* may 
be set forth before the Lord as incense, and the lift- 
ing up of our hands as the evening sacrifice.'' 

Schleiermacher, the great German theologian, repre- 
sented the essence of religion as consisting in a sense 
of dependence on God. This is a mistake ; it would 
make religion too like the obedience which a dog 
renders to its master. The essence of religion and of 
all virtue consists in love — in love to God, and love 
to man, rendered because it is due, and leading us to 
bow before God and to do His will. This is the essence 
of religion to all intelligent beings throughout the 
universe. Religion to those who are sinners consists 
in believing — in believing in Christ the Saviour, in 
surrendering ourselves, and following Him in love. 
They who come fully under its power walk with God. 
They have the privilege of access to Him at all times. 
They can unbosom themselves to Him as a man 
does to his friend, and find relief in doing so. They 
walk in a way prepared for them : in a way shut in 
for them ; it may be, by thorns on the right side and 



THE LORD IN ALL OUR WA YS, 17 

the left ; but all that they may be kept from wan- 
dering, and protected from intruders coming in upon 
them from the waste. At any one point in the jour- 
ney they may see but a very little way before them ; 
but they see the path defined as for the time 
present, and they walk on under a shady canopy, 
having a glimpse ever and anon of the restored Para- 
dise toward which they are traveling. 

IV. 

The Lord directs our steps. God has two 
special ways of directing us. There is His Provi- 
dence, which has formed a path for us through this 
world, which is as tangled as a forest, and draws or 
drives us into it. The road has windings of which 
we do not see the meaning at the time ; but "" what 
thou knowest not now thou shalt know hereafter " ; 
as we discover that the road struck off at that place to 
avoid a mountain, or a precipice, which would have 
interrupted our progress, or a river into which we 
might have fallen. When the children of Israel went 
out of Egypt, the Lord did not lead them by the 
near way — which was the way of the Philistines, a 
warlike people, who would have fallen upon them 
and slain them ; but by the wilderness, where they 
were purified by the air of the desert, and saw His won- 
ders in the manna lying on the bare waste, and water 
flowing from the smitten rock, and the pillar of cloud 
by day, ever kindled into the pillar of fire by night. 
He led them forth, not by the near way, but " by the 
right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. 



1 8 " THE PROPRIETY OF ACKNO WLEDGING 

At the time we may not see it to be the right way. 
"All these things are against me/' was the language 
which Jacob was tempted to use on one occasion. 
And at the time all things seemed to be against 
him. His favorite son went out in youthful buoyancy 
to visit the encampment of his brothers, and the only 
record of him was his coat dipped in blood, indicat- 
ing that he had been torn by wild beasts. Beset by 
famine, he sent out ten of his sons to buy corn in 
Egypt ; and nine of them returned to tell how one 
of them had been retained as a prisoner, and would 
not be released unless the- youngest brother were 
sent to that country. We do not wonder that in 
these circumstances the expression should ha«ve 
escaped him, "AH these things are against me.'* But 
as he followed reluctantly the will of God, he was 
made to see that the departure of Joseph was the 
means of preserving the whole family from famine 
and furnishing a refuge for the race on which hung 
the destinies of mankind; and in allowing his Ben- 
jamin to go, it turned out that the whole household 
was reunited and preserved. He then saw, to use 
the language of a man of stronger faith in a more 
advanced age, " that all things work together for 
good to them that love God and are the called ac- 
cording to His purpose." It is a characteristic of the 
Old Testament that it shows us the path by which 
believers are led ; while they walked in it, it seemed 
tortuous to them ; but the Bible discloses the issue. 
Many an aged Christian is able, ere he departs, to 
testify that an unseen hand has been guiding him. I 



THE LORD IN ALL OUR WA YS, ig 

am still on the journey, and do not yet see the inten- 
tion of all I have passed through ; but I find it 
curious and instructive to note that the few offices I 
coveted and applied for were not given me, and that 
the important offices in the Church and in the col- 
leges which I have held in two countries, were offered 
me without any application whatever on my part. I 
believe that, when we reach heaven, we will a.l see 
the wisdom of the way in which we have been led ; 
not the way we should ourselves have chosen, but a 
far better way. 

In these days, when physical science is studied in 
a narrow and exclusive spirit, people confuse them- 
selves as to the possibility of God answering prayer 
and accomplishing His ends. The laws of nature are 
so fixed, they say, that there is nothing for God, if 
there be a God, but to lay by and see them working. 
They forget, in the first place, that the laws of nature 
are, in fact, the laws of God ; as the Psalmist express- 
es it, *^They continue this day, according to Thine or- 
dinances, for all are Thy servants.'' This was a truth 
clearly seen and often expressed by the eminent phi- 
losopher lately taken from us, who was so long and 
intimately connected with this College, who was, for 
years past, the head of the science of this country, 
who w^as described by Brewster as the successor of 
Franklin in America, and who discovered those scien- 
tific principles which made it possible to communi- 
cate with lightning velocity with the most distant 
parts of the earth : he delighted to ascribe all the 
operations of nature to God. 



20 THE PROPRIETY OF ACKNO WLEDGING 

I could show you, if time admitted and the occasion 
were appropriate, that the predestination, so express- 
ly laid down in Scripture, is the same as the uniform- 
ity of nature as established by modern science. It is 
one and the same truth seen under different aspects, 
the one from above, on the side of God and heaven, 
and the other from below, on the side of man and of 
the earth. Both are quite consistent, on the one 
hand, with the freedom of man, who may use these 
agents to accomplish his ends ; and, on the other hand, 
with the freedom of God, who thus executes His 
eternal purposes. They forget that in order to an 
end there is need not only of laws, but an arrangement, 
an adjustment of these laws. In that machine there 
is need not only of wheels, joints, straps, cylinders, 
but of a distribution of them, and a fitting of them 
one to another, in order that it throv/ off its valuable 
products in wool, cotton, or metal. So in the mighty 
works of God, there are not only laws, but a colloca- 
tion of laws, not only agencies, but an adjustment of 
agencies in order that He may guide and protect His 
creatures. The eye looking up to the sky can see a 
star millions of miles away, and this not merely be- 
cause of the laws of light and the laws of the coats 
and humors of the eye, but because the light from 
that distant object is suited to our organism. It is 
by such pre-arrangements that God gives an answer to 
the prayer of faith and fulfills His promises to His peo- 
ple, "The very hairs of our head are all numbered.'' 
"A sparrow can not fall to the ground without 
Him." 



THE LORD IN ALL O UR^ WA YS. 2 1 

But there is another way in which God directs our 
steps, and this is by means of His Word and Spirit. 
I put these two together, for in addressing us the 
Spirit acts through the Word, and the Word as an 
instrument needs the Spirit to wield it, and give it 
force. In His ordinary operations the Spirit does 
not reveal anything new; He simply applies the 
truths of God's Word to the conscience and to the 
heart, making them convince and convert, sanctify 
and comfort. On the other hand, the Word itself 
can not regenerate a soul ; it is merely the sword which 
the Spirit uses to the dividing asunder of the flesh 
and spirit. But by the Word and Spirit He is speak- 
ing to us as effectually as He did to His ancient 
people. True, He may not speak to us in the whirl- 
wind, as He once did to the patriarch Job, or visit us 
in earthquake, as He once did Jerusalem, or descend 
in fire, as He once did in answer to the prayer of 
Elijah ; but though the Lord is not in the strong 
wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire. He address- 
es us in the still, small voice of His Word spoken by 
the Spirit. He speaks to us in the passages which 
we read. Nay, as v/e read, the truth impresses itself 
upon our hearts — as the words spoken to the phono- 
graph do upon the metal, and the law is written on 
the heart and speaks to us from day to day. With 
God's providence overshadowing him as an avenue, 
and with God's graca to buoy him up within, the Chris- 
tian v/alks on his way, leaning on the arm of Jesus as 
his beloved, and with heaven in his eye. 



22 THE PROPRIETY OF ACKNO WLEDGING 

Gentlemen of the Graduating Class : — Hav- 
ing completed an extended course of education of a 
general kind, you are now about to set out on your 
special professional walks. Some of you, I know, are 
very anxious, and so are your fathers, mothers, and 
friends, as to what line of life you should pursue. 
From the height you have now reached you will look 
into the country before you thoughtfully and care- 
fully. The atmosphere is somewhat dim, and the 
land woody and tangled ; you see the openings, but 
not the terminations, of the roads. In these circum- 
stances you should take counsel from Him who sur- 
veys all things from a greater height, and knows the 
end from the beginning. " Show me the way where- 
in I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto Thee." 

Every one in this life has to take his own way. 
The path in which we have to go has never been 
trodden by any one before us. No one, father or 
mother or friend, can go the whole way with us. 
With some now present the time has come when they 
have to go forth from the dear home in which they 
have been reared, and are no longer to be under the 
special care of those who have hitherto guided 
them so faithfully and tenderly. Every one has to 
cut a way for himself, as the ship has in the broad 
ocean ; it is to him a new one, he has to take it once 
for all, and can not return upon it. Every man has 
only one life; he has to live it only once; and he 
can not^ — though this is the vain wish of many an 
old man — live it over again. How important that 
you should choose the right way, and when you can 



THE LORD IN ALL OUR WA YS. 23 

not have a human, to have a divine and infallible 
Guide. 

Your feeling this day will be a mixed one, partly 
of gladness and partly of sadness, that one stage of 
life has been run. You will have much the same 
feeling as the daughter has when she has to leave her 
mother's house, to enter into a house of her own, 
with one she can trust. You will have devices and 
hopes as to the new path on which you have entered ; 
but this will not prevent you from feeling sorrow in 
parting with the place which you have learned to 
love, and from companions with whom you have 
had pleasant social intercourse. 

I can not but feel an interest in young men who 
have been for years within our walls, and with whom 
I have come in contact weekly — in a sense, daily. I 
can sincerely say that, as I look back on your course 
here, I have no unpleasant, and many pleasant, mem- 
ories : of character developed, of progress in study, 
of attachments gained, and friendships formed among 
those who, long under me, now feel as if they are 
on the same level. We will remember you with in- 
terest and affection, and look forward to your future 
career with hope and expectation. We confide in 
you, that you will never do anything unworthy of 
the institution at which you have been trained, and 
which will cause your Alma Mater to be ashamed of 
you. You will, I trust, return from time to time to 
these pleasant heights, to visit these shaded walks, 
and these rooms so full of memories, to pay your 
respects to those who have taught you so faithfully. 



24 



THE PROPRIETY OF ACKNOWLEDGING 



who will follow your career with interest, and always 
be glad to renew their acquaintance with you. 

You have here enjoyed, you will admit, many privi- 
leges. You came to us while we were multiplying 
our teachers so as to subdivide our instruction and 
make it more efficient and embrace the important 
branches of knowledge taught in our best colleges, 
and furnishing our libraries and museums so as to en- 
able you to look into what has been done in the past 
and penetrate into the secrets of nature, and, I may 
add, beautifying our lawn and our buildings so as to 
elevate the taste by the objects pressing themselves 
on your notice. As vastly more important, you 
have had able and faithful instructors who have taken 
great pains to disclose to you the refinements of liter- 
ature, the truths of science, and the elevations of 
philosophy. Here, too, you have had the volume of 
inspiration opened and seen there more precious 
treasures than apparatus and books and lectures, and 
seen as in a glass the glory of the Lord revealed in 
the face of His Son. It is most interesting to us to 
find that the pre-eminent value of Scripture and the 
need and preciousness of the salvation in Christ were 
truths as firmly held by Dr. Henry as the principles 
of science which he did so much to advance — in this 
as in character honorable and pure, he has set an 
example to the youth of this College which they 
should delight to follow. 

We who have been placed over you, feel, I am 
sure, as if we had not always improved, as we should 
have done, our opportunities of doing good ; and 



THE LORD IN ALL OUR WA YS. 25 

some of you may have to confess that you might have 
profited more than you have done by the instruction 
imparted. Some of us might wish that we could 
only this day make up for our defects. But this can 
not now be done. The past is past ; but we may and 
should remember that '' God requireth that which is 
past ; " we may ask forgiveness for the past, and require 
of it to give us lessons so that we may profit by our 
very failures, by avoiding int he future the mistakes 
of the past. Let us feel, however, that we are not to 
be contented with mere empty purposes ; v/e are ^^ to 
bring forth fruits meet for repentance." The model 
of rousing preaching who uttered these words used 
to address each particular class of his hearers as he 
saw they needed — bidding the publicans exact no 
more than had been appointed them, and the soldiers 
to do no violence to any man, and the self-righteous 
Jews not to trust to having Abraham as their father, 
and all to repent and believe. So, trusting that the 
memorable occasion may give impressiveness to my 
words, I say to you intending lawyers, see that 
ye yield to no crookedness ; and to you intending 
merchants, that ye be honorable in all your trans- 
actions ; to you journalists, that ye write only what 
ye know to be true, and to you ministers of the ever- 
lasting Gospel, that your aim be to win souls to 
Christ ; and to all, that ye live soberly, righteously, 
and- godly. Setting you forth with these purposes, 
the College now in parting with you, leaves its bless- 
ing on you and prays for a higher blessing. '' The 
Lord shall preserve thee from all evil ; He shall pre- 



26 ACKNO WLEDGE THE LORD. 

serve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going 
out and thy coming in from this time forth even for- 
evermore." 

We may never meet again on earth. But there is 
one place where we must all meet, and that is at the 
judgment day, there to be re-united and never sepa- 
rated, or to be separated and never re-united ; how- 
ever widely you may be sundered on earth, you will 
all have to come together from the east and the west, 
the north and the south, and the earth and the sea 
will have to give up their dead. A roll will then be 
called, to which all will have to answer. How wretch- 
ed those who have hid their Lord's talent in the earth. 
How blessed those whose names are written in the 
Lord's Book of Life ; '' they rest from their labors 
and their works do follow them." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



mil 

028 333 655 4 



DR. McCOSH'S WORKS. 



I. LOGIC-LAWS OF DISCURSIVE THOUGHT : Being a Text-book 
of Formal Logic. i2mo. $1.50. 

The work has been reviewed lately (1876) in the leading philosophic peri- 
odical of Germany, the '• Zeitschift fur Philosophic," by Dr. Ulrici, one 
of the editors, who points out thie leading^ characteristics of the treatise 
and closes a long and able discussion with declaring, " 1 hesitate not to 
declare that Dr. McCosh's work is the best Text-book of Logic in the En- 
glish language." Dr. Uberweg, the famous historian of philosophy, de- 
clares that Dr. McCosh has made important additions to Logic. 

This work is used in a considerable number of the Colleges and Upper 
Schools of the United States and of Canada ; and strong testimonies have 
been given, both by teachers and pupils, in_ favor of its being practically 
adapted to the understanding of youth. It is brief, simple, and intelligible, 
and abounds in examples and illustrations. 

II. HISTORY OF SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY. 8vo. $4.00. 

This work bas been lately reviewed, with high commendations, by X)r. Dor- 
ner, of Berlin, in the '* JahrbticherfUr Deutsche Philosophic," and in Feb- 
ruary, 1878, by Prof. Ferri, one of the editors, in '"'• La Filosofia delle Scuole 
Italiane." 

III. THE METHOD OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT, Physical and 

Moral. 8vo. -1=2.50. : 

"• It is refreshing to read a work so distinguished for originality and sound- 
ness of thinking, especially as coming from an author of our own country." 
— Sir IViliiajJt Hamilton. 

IV. TYPICAL FORMS AND SPECIAL ENDS IN CREATION. By James 

McCosH,LL.D., and Dr. Dickie. 8vo. '^2.50. 

'' It is alike comprehensive in its range, accurate and minute in its details, 
original in its structure, and devout in its tone and tendency."— y^r^z/j, 

V. THE INTUITIONS OF THE MIND. New and Improved Edition. 8vo. 
$3-oo. - - 

^^ It is the only scientific work adapted to counteract the school of Mill, Bain, 
and Herbert Spencer, which is so steadily prevailing among the students 
of the present generation."- — Lv7tdon Quarterly Revieiu., April., 1865. 

VI. A DEFENCE OF FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH. Being an Examination 
of Mr. J. S. Mill's Philosophy. 8vo. $3.00. 
"' The spirit of these discussions is admirable. Fearless and courteous, 
McCosh never hesitates to bestow praise when merited, nor to attack a 
heresy wherever found." — Congregational Reviezu, 

VII. CHRISTIANITY AND POSITIVISM. A Series of Lectures to the Times 
on Natural Theology and Apologetics. i2mo. $1.75. 

VIIL IDEAS IN NATURE OVERLOOKED BY DR. TYNDALL. Being an 
Examination of Dr. Tyndall's Belfast x\ddress. i2mo. Cloth. 50 cents. 

IX. THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS. 50 cents. 

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS. 

New York. 



